DIY Cleaning Fuel Injectors?

[Vincenzo]

Hello nice people,
I just watched a video that reminded me of the 1990's and 1980's, when I had a very smart older friend (and sometimes boss) who owned a small car electronics garage. He was an inventor and I was his electronics geek young friend. One of the electronic circuits I designed and built for him was something that he built fuel injector cleaning machines with. The machines were fancy looking with a few toggle switches and lights and hoses and he made a little fortune selling them to friends who run garages. The instrument was basically switching pulses with different patterns to injectors that had a cleaner chemical run through them at high pressure and the sprayed colored liquid would accumulate in long transparent cylindrical containers for comparison. They had 4, 6, and 8 options.


Here is a nice guy who looks like having a Turkish accent who makes good videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rk0tKtiVic who is using a much simpler process than my old friend.

Now, as I'm becoming a DIY experimenter on my Grand Prix, I have a few questions.
Is this procedure useful as a preventative measure? and is messing with the injectors (by taking them out and putting them back in the rail again) easy?
Is it worth the effort?
Are there performance signs that this process may fix, when there is no code?

I use SEAFOAM very frequently (almost every oil change) and I feel a difference and we all know that fuels engines have not changed much and carbon and other deposits do gradually clog the nozzles.

About another related topic, are there any performance signs that would make me think that a fuel pressure regulator is old and needs to be replaced, other than that it's diaphragm is leaking fuel?

I wish that the nice smart people in this forum have a say about those questions.


Thank you
Vincenzo Masiello

 

[SgtMarshal]

I've discussed cleaning injectors with a few people, one a member on here, and it is possible and is pretty easy to remove the injectors, but with the cost of a replacement used injector being so low, there isn't a lot of need to clean them. If it something you wanted to do as a hobby and enjoyed it, you could probably get set up and clean them for people, but I have no idea if it would be worth your time. I think the most useful part of messing with injectors would be a flow testing station.

 

[Burbman]

I have gotten good results having them cleaned. In addition to the ultrasonic cleaning, you get new pintle caps, o-rings and internal filters. My results here. Cost was $20 each.

 

[Vincenzo]

I have gotten good results having them cleaned. In addition to the ultrasonic cleaning, you get new pintle caps, o-rings and internal filters. My results here. Cost was $20 each.

I would never pay more than half the price of new for cleaning old. All the o-rings and accessories come with the new. I noticed in the thread you were talking about that, the shiny science-fiction type terms they used to charge people all that much, but I feel that cleaning is cleaning and can be done by yourself in a good weekend.
I may do it if the whole thing is $40-75.

 

[Vincenzo]

I've discussed cleaning injectors with a few people, one a member on here, and it is possible and is pretty easy to remove the injectors, but with the cost of a replacement used injector being so low, there isn't a lot of need to clean them. If it something you wanted to do as a hobby and enjoyed it, you could probably get set up and clean them for people, but I have no idea if it would be worth your time. I think the most useful part of messing with injectors would be a flow testing station.

I totally agree that replacing with new is a good option, but replacing all with no solid diagnosis is like throwing cash away ($150-200 online OEM value, much more dealer prices).
I'm thinking about building a liquid level comparison kind of device that compares the levels of what all the injectors spill when given short and fast pulses alternatively. Then clean the different ones if applicable (saves $30-50 each) and/or replace only the bad ones.
The whole setup should be next to free and it's meant to be preventative and to lengthen the lifetime of injectors and enhance mileage and performance. I think it's something to do once a year or every 50K miles.

 

[Burbman]

The Bosch OE are $48 on Rock Auto, AC Delco are $80, you can get remans for $28, but the remanufacturing process is the same as the ASNU cleaning process. Either way, having them cleaned locally for $20 is still a good value IMHO.

This car has 103k miles now, I don't know the history of Seafoam/Techron usage by the PO, but experts generally say that no amount of on-car cleaning can match the ASNU process.

It's your nickel, I was just passing along my experience/results.

 

[SgtMarshal]

you can often find a set of used injectors on here very inexpensively. I've sold a couple sets for 20 dollars, and have heard of several other people doing the same thing. it is not difficult to diagnoses a faulty injector, I have a neighbor who had a bad misfire, the check engine code pinpointed the injector, we replaced it, and fixed the misfire.

 

[Vincenzo]

you can often find a set of used injectors on here very inexpensively. I've sold a couple sets for 20 dollars, and have heard of several other people doing the same thing. it is not difficult to diagnoses a faulty injector, I have a neighbor who had a bad misfire, the check engine code pinpointed the injector, we replaced it, and fixed the misfire.

The only misfire that ever happened to me was when my ignition module died and cost me a fortune to replace. That's how big a deal a misfire for me is. I'm very far away from that and don't have any real problem or codes.
I'm talking about a preventative thing to do once a year or so, just like flushing the coolant system or cleaning the tbi, ...etc..